The Sound Board

At Superbooth, Spectrasonics has announced a major update of its flagship software synthesizer Omnisphere.

Spectrasonics say "With the new version 2.5, Omnisphere becomes the first software synth in the world to offer a Hardware Synth Integration feature, which transforms well-known hardware synthesizers into extensive hands-on controllers for unlocking Omnisphere's newly expanded synthesis capabilities. Simply put, this new feature makes using Omnisphere feel just like using a hardware synth."

Hardware Synth Integration

The innovative new feature bridges the physical experience gap between software and hardware, allowing users intuitive control and the ability to easily create/modify Omnisphere sounds by using the familiar layout of their supported hardware synth with minimal setup. The initial release will officially support over 20 popular hardware synthesizers from Moog, Dave Smith Instruments, Roland, Korg, Behringer, Novation, Sequential and more to come. The supported hardware synths cover a wide range of types and price ranges for different types of users.

On the technical side, the new Hardware Synth Integration feature in v2.5 goes far beyond the typical "MIDI Learn" approaches that most software synthesizers employ. Under the hood, Spectrasonics development team has carefully designed unique "Hardware Profiles" for each supported hardware synthesizer, to make the special features of that hardware work seamlessly with Omnisphere by translating MIDI messages from the hardware into satisfying sonic results in Omnisphere. This new system allows Spectrasonics to enable sophisticated interactions from a single touch of a knob, including the ability for Omnisphere to automatically recall entire FX racks, assign multiple scaled parameters and even instantly create complex modulation matrix routings on-the-fly. The new development system also allows Spectrasonics to add new profiles for new hardware synths in the future. Most importantly, it's easy for musicians to use - simply by selecting the hardware synth from the drop-down HW menu.

Expanded Synthesis Capabilities

The new version 2.5 vastly expands the synthesis capabilities of Omnisphere by doubling Omnisphere's voice architecture to Four Layers per patch. Each patch can now utilize up to 12 envelopes, 8 LFOs and the Modulation Matrix has been doubled to 48 modulation routings. Newly designed State Variable Filters are included, which were specially created for the OB-6 hardware profile and can seamlessly blend between lowpass, notch and hipass filter modes. Over 50 New "Analog" Oscillator Wavetables are included and featured in the new hardware profiles.

New Hardware Sound Library

Omnisphere 2.5 includes a new "Hardware Library" with hundreds of new patches created by Eric Persing and the Spectrasonics Sound Development team using the Hardware Synth Integration feature. Each hardware profile has a corresponding set of sounds in the Hardware Library which were specially designed using that hardware synth as an Omnisphere controller. The new sounds feature a wide range of categories and many have a distinctly 'classic analog' flavor. Best of all, the new sounds are available for ALL users, regardless of if they use hardware or not.

"Since the beginning of computer-based music, the biggest limitation of software synthesizers has been the lack of physical interaction. It's hard to beat the immediacy of a physical synthesizer that you can touch. We are very excited to be able to finally eliminate that problem by utilizing the world's finest hardware synthesizers to fully control Omnisphere." said Eric Persing, Creative Director of Spectrasonics. "We've never felt that the worlds of software and hardware synths should be segregated into different 'camps'. Our virtual instrument users can now experience the joy of the hardware synth workflow and hardware synth users can now fully expand their capabilities into the vast sonic world of Omnisphere."

Omnisphere v2.5 features:

Hardware Synth Integration.
New Hardware Library adds hundreds of new patches for all users:
Over 13,000 Sounds total now included.
Vastly Expanded Synthesis:
Four Layers per patch.
Doubled Mod Matrix.
New State Variable Filters.
8 LFOs, 12 Envelopes.
Free for all Omnisphere 2 users.

Hardware Synths supported include:

Sequential Prophet 6.
DSI OB-6.
DSI Rev 2.
Moog Voyager.
Moog Little Phatty.
Moog Sub Phatty.
Moog Sub 37.
Moog Subsequent 37.
Korg Minilogue.
Roland System 8.
Roland System 1.
Roland SE-02.
Roland SH-01A.
Roland JP-08.
Roland JU-06.
Roland JX-03.
Roland VP-03.
Novation Bassstation II.
Novation Peak.
Behringer Deepmind.
*complete list of new features and supported synths will be announced upon the official release in mid-Summer 2018.

Public Beta

The 2.5 update will initially be released in May 2018 as a Public Beta. All registered Omnisphere 2 users with Standard licenses are eligible to sign up to join the Public Beta test. Spectrasonics is encouraging end users to participate and provide feedback in the Public Beta test. The company says that users who give high quality testing/feedback reports in the Public Beta will be eligible to join the official Spectrasonics Beta Team for future products.

Eligible users can sign up for the 2.5 Public Beta program through their Spectrasonics User Account.

Pricing and Availability

Omnisphere 2.5 is a free update to all registered Omnisphere 2 users. Public Beta starts in May. Official Release Mid-Summer.

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑May 03, 2018 10:26 am Georg - funnily enough I was looking at the System 1m. There would actually be room for this in my setup, amazingly, right on top of all the Swissonic keyboard controllers I'll never use. I'll need to research and live with the idea for a while - it could be a bit more of a toy than anything else for me. Then there's those natty little boutique versions of the 106, Jupiter 8, JX-3P and the SH-02.

Erik wrote: ↑May 03, 2018 4:30 pmHardware companies gonna love Eric because of this innovation, aren't they ?

Ages wrote: ↑May 03, 2018 6:57 pm I didn't catch everything that was said though. Do you only hear the sound of Omnisphere when using it with a hardware synth, or is there some kind of mixed mode where you hear both? It looks like a cool thing to have if you already own one of those synths, but otherwise they're very expensive soft synth controllers haha